1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for processing pharmaceutical data. More particularly, the present invention pertains to a system that maintains the confidentiality of a patient""s identity information associated with the pharmaceutical data being processed. However, the data being processed is not limited to pharmaceutical information. That is, the present invention has applications in numerous fields, such as law, finance or any other field that requires confidentiality.
2. Discussion of Background Information
Up until now, the issue of medical record confidentiality has not been adequately addressed. In order for health care providers to offer the highest level of patient care, it is essential to enlist the trust of patients, specifically with regard to the issue of protecting the confidentiality of any medical information provided in confidence by patients to health care providers. This would include prescription medication information provided to pharmacists.
Pharmacy-based medication compliance programs remind patients when their prescription, as written by their doctor, needs to be refilled and provide patients with information about medication usage, potential side effects, and precautions. Typically, such programs are implemented by providing patients with mailed communications from their local pharmacists at specific intervals during their prescription therapies (e.g., prior to refills coming due). Such pharmacy-based medication compliance programs have proven to be successful at increasing the rate that patients adhere to their physicians"" prescribed instructions across multiple therapeutic categories. Some programs have demonstrated increases in compliance on the order of 50% or greater.
Due to the large volume of prescriptions being filled nowadays, pharmacists often need assistance in fulfilling administrative tasks, such as sending patient reminders, so the pharmacists have more time to devote to serving patients at the pharmacy. Thus, pharmacies frequently enlist the assistance of outside parties to implement compliance programs.
Compliance programs help patients to follow their physician""s instructions. Without compliance programs, only about half of all prescriptions written each year are taken correctly. The other half are taken incorrectly, by patients who are xe2x80x9cnon-compliantxe2x80x9d with their doctor""s prescribed instructions. The term non-compliant is a catch-all phrase referring to any deviation from a prescribed pharmaceutical regimen, including: over-dosing/taking medication too frequently, taking medication at incorrect times of the day, under-dosing and periodic drug holidays, sharing prescribed medicines with others, mixing medicines inappropriately with alcohol, tobacco, certain foods, and other prescribed or over-the-counter remedies, and failing to fill or refill prescriptions altogether.
Taken in total, non-compliance in its many forms exacts a significant toll in unnecessary health care costs, lower quality of patient health, and even lost lives. Conservative estimates from academic researchers, government agencies, and health care industry experts indicate that each year, non-compliance with prescribed pharmaceutical regimens in the United States contributes to: between 6-10% of all hospital admissions; 125,000 deaths in the cardiovascular area alone; over 20 million lost working hours; and between $15-20 billion in avoidable health care costs.
Canada has non-compliance issues similar to those in the United States, and the problem has been studied there as well. In Canada, non-compliance with prescription medications is estimated to cost the health care system between $7 and $9 billion each year in direct and indirect costs. This makes prescription non-compliance one of Canada""s largest and most expensive xe2x80x9cdiseasexe2x80x9d categories, equivalent to the total cost of coronary heart disease.
The problem of non-compliance is particularly severe in pharmaceutical therapies for chronic, long-term conditions such as hypertension, asthma, epilepsy, and hypercholesterolemia. The predominant form of non-compliant behavior in such long-term therapies is premature discontinuance (i.e., missed refills). In fact, several studies have shown that patient retention rates in long-term therapies decline to 50% over the first six to twelve months of therapy, regardless of the illness or patient setting.
Pharmacists are in perhaps the best position to help patients adhere to their doctor""s prescription instructions. Pharmacists are trained to answer questions about prescriptions for their patients and they are always looking for ways to better communicate with their patients. Systems presently exist to facilitate this communication using modem and cost-effective methods that support and reinforce the efforts of today""s busy pharmacists. However, such systems require that confidential prescription information be provided to the third parties that are implementing the services.
As previously stated, medication compliance programs often involve the use of outside parties by pharmacies to assist in the program implementation. In order to implement such programs, pharmacies are frequently required to provide patient prescription records to third parties for data processing and analysis. While the confidentiality of these records can be protected by contractual obligations between the pharmacy and the third party, the perception that patient confidentiality may be compromised could exist. Because of the significant health care value of pharmacy-based medication compliance programs, a need exists for a solution that allows pharmacies to implement compliance programs without any real or perceived violation of the confidentiality of patient prescription records.
Hence, an object of the invention is to respond to the public debate surrounding prescription record confidentiality issues. This object is achieved by allowing pharmacies to utilize third party services to help them implement medication compliance services for their patients without ever providing confidential patient-identifiable information to the third party. According to the present invention, patient-identifiable information contained in a patient prescription record is automatically replaced with a unique patient identification number, enabling pharmacies to generate an electronic file that can be provided to third party data processors to facilitate the use of medication compliance programs. The patient-identifiable information is re-united with the xe2x80x9cpatient-blindedxe2x80x9d database files, used to generate communications from the pharmacist to the patient, within the pharmacy environment. Thus, the present invention enables pharmacies to address the serious health care problem of medication non-compliance in a manner that preserves the confidentiality of patients"" private medical records.
A system is provided for processing data including specific identity information and substantive information. The system permits analysis of the substantive information to occur while maintaining the confidentiality of the specific identity information. The system includes a server and a data processor. The server stores the data and transmits the data to a data processor. Before transmitting the data, the server replaces the specific identity information with unique generic identification information. The data processor imports the data, including the substituted generic identification information, and analyzes the substantive information to obtain results. The data processor then exports the results along with the associated generic identification information back to the server. Upon receiving the results, the server supplements the generic identification information with the corresponding specific identity information so that the results are associated with the specific identity information corresponding to the substantive information that is the source of the results. The unique identification information may be a name and an address. A local system that supplies the data to the server may also be provided. Moreover, the results may be intervention types and timing and the server may receive the results and add the name and address to the results so that correspondence can be generated in accordance with the intervention types and timing for that name. The individual identity information is forwarded to a fulfillment house in a preferred embodiment.
According to another embodiment, a system is provided for processing data including specific identity information and substantive information. The system permits analysis of the substantive information to occur at a remote site while maintaining the specific identity information at a local site. The system includes a local server residing at the local site and an analyzing system. The local server stores the data and transmits the data to the remote site. The local server substitutes the specific identity information with unique generic identification information before transmitting. The analyzing system resides at the remote site and imports the data, including the substituted unique identification information, from the local site. The analyzing site analyzes the substantive information to obtain results and exports the results along with the associated generic identification information back to the local site. The generic identification information is combined with the specific identity information at the local site so that the results are associated with the specific identity information corresponding to the substantive information that is the source of the results.
The data may be transmitted via a T1 connection. Moreover, The specific identity information may include a patient""s name and address.
According to another embodiment, a system is provided for processing data including specific identity information and substantive information. The system permits analysis of the substantive information to occur at a remote site while maintaining confidentiality of the specific identity information. The system includes a server residing at the remote site and an analyzing system. The server stores the data and transmits the data and substitutes the specific identity information with unique generic identification information before transmitting. The analyzing system also resides at the remote site and receives the transmitted data, including the substituted generic identification information. The analyzing system analyzes the substantive information to obtain results that are exported, along with the associated unique identification information, back to the server. The server supplements the generic identification information with the specific identity information so that the results are matched with the specific identity information corresponding to the substantive information that is the source of the results.
According to another embodiment, a method is provided for processing data, including specific identity information and substantive information. The system permits analysis of the substantive information to occur while maintaining the confidentiality of the specific identity information. The method includes storing the data; substituting the specific identity information with unique generic identification information; and transmitting the data, including the substituted generic identification information and the substantive information to a data processor. Subsequently, the data processor imports the data, including the substituted generic identification information, and analyzes the substantive information to obtain results; and exports the results along with the associated generic identification information back to the server. Subsequently, the server associates the generic identification information with the corresponding specific identity information so that the results are associated with the specific identity information corresponding to the substantive information that is the source of the results.
The method may also include the server transmitting the results to a fulfillment house. Moreover, the method may include the server processing the results and transmitting correspondence in accordance with the results. Preferably, the server cleans the data before transmitting the data to the data processor. The server cleans the data by removing undesired predetermined information from the data before transmitting the data to the data processor. The server and the data processor can be located at the same site or at different sites.
According to another embodiment, a method is provided for facilitating compliance while maintaining a patient""s confidentiality within a pharmaceutical system including a plurality of local systems, a local server, a remote compliance system, and a fulfillment system. The method includes transferring the patient""s identity information along with the patients prescription information from the plurality of local systems to the local server; substituting the patient""s identity information with a unique generic ID at the local server; transferring the generic ID and prescription information to the remote compliance system; processing the prescription information, associated with the generic ID, and exporting intervention information, the generic ID, and a letter library to the local server; supplementing the generic ID with the patient""s identity information at the local server; merging the export file, letter library and patient information to obtain fulfillment information; and transferring the fulfillment information to the fulfillment system to generate correspondence to be sent to the patients.
The supplementing may include storing the patient""s identity information and the generic ID in a table residing on the local server. The replacing may include locating the unique ID in the table to find the corresponding patient""s identity information. Preferably, the local server and the remote compliance system are located at the same site.
According to another embodiment, a computer data signal is provided. The signal enables data processing while maintaining confidentiality and includes three states. Th first state includes the substantive information and specific identity information. The second state includes the substantive information and a unique generic ID that anonymously represents the specific identity information. The third state includes analysis results of the substantive information, the generic ID, and the specific identity information represented by the generic ID. Consequently, analysis of the signal in the second state occurs without knowledge of the specific identity information, thus maintaining confidentiality of the specific identity information.
According to another embodiment, a medical data analysis preparation system is provided for processing prescription data including personal identity information and prescription information and for preventing access to the personal identity information by a data processor that analyzes the prescription information. The system includes a classification component that classifies records of the prescription data into the personal identity information and the prescription information while maintaining association of the personal identity information with the prescription information. The system also includes an anonymizing component that converts a predetermined record within the personal identity information to unique generic identification information associated with the prescription information. The system also includes a confidential data stripping component that removes all personal identity information from the prescription data other than the generic identification information. The system also includes a transmitting component that transmits the prescription information together with the associated generic identification information to the data processor. The system also includes a receiving component for receiving analysis results along with the associated generic identification information from the data processor. The system also includes an associating component that associates the generic identification information with corresponding personal identity information and converts the predetermined record back into the personal identity information. The system also includes an output component that outputs the analysis results together with the associated personal identity information. Preferably, the system also includes an intervention action component that converts the analysis results into intervention types and timing associated with the personal identity information and generates preformatted letters.
According to another embodiment, a system is provided for processing data including specific identity information and substantive information. The system permits analysis of the substantive information to occur while maintaining the confidentiality of the specific identity information. The system includes a server that stores the data and transmits the data. The server substitutes the specific identity information with unique generic identification information before transmitting. When the server receives results along with the associated generic identification information, the server associates the generic identification information with the corresponding specific identity information so that the results are associated with the specific identity information related to the substantive information that is the source of the results. The server may reside at a pharmacy.